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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

It's not a completely illogical approach. An armored convoy stands out like a sore thumb in Rawalpindi. An ordinary slightly beat up, 6-8 year old Suzuki Bolan does not. Maybe send out a few decoy high security vehicles with uniformed crews going in a few different directions, and then send out the Bolan going elsewhere.

Bolan: https://www.google.com/search?q=suzuki+bolan&client=ubuntu&h...

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If an armored convoy is not enough to protect your nuclear weapons, then you have an entirely different problem that needs solving first.

The history of Pakistan in a nutshell

I think its an intelligence thing, protecting nuclear weapon movement from foreign satellites/drones etc.

Might be true, but that won't stop Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons.

They've already had them for a few decades.

> If an armored convoy is not enough to protect your nuclear weapons...

The concern appears to be, at least partially, "the Americans will watch the convoys via satellite and know where we've got them all stored".

Considering the article it looks like they know either way.

The idea is not perfect secrecy, but plausible "we might have one more than you think you know about" that matters.

Pakistan has several armies, foreign and domestic, operating in its territory.

You're right Pakistan's problems are many and epic.

But saying "Hey, I have a great idea, you should solve your problems!" is not brilliant advice. They've already thought of that.

In software circles, this is called "security by obscurity" and is frowned upon. And if it's a bad idea with software, I'd argue it's also a bad idea with nuclear weapons.

Pakistani nuclear command and security forces are operated as cells isolated from the civilian government and regular army for a good reason.

Executing a process covertly doesn't imply "security by obscurity".

People constantly misuse that quote to claim that "obscurity" should never be used. This is false; denying your opponent information is a critical component of a well-designed security process.

It should not be the only mechanism employed.

(I have no clue what, if any, other measures Pakistan employed.)

Yep, I should have clarified that's what I meant. Agreed that obscurity should not be the only strategy employed.

As an end user I use obscurity as my means to deny information - for instance at ATM when asked for a pin I would purposely touch a few more keys to break the sequence on the ATM machine.

You are absolutely correct. Having worked in the field I can tell you that Security Research into iPhones is a lot harder than Android.

You have the full source of major important components of Android (like the OS Kernel), and you have very little of that for iOS. They've both got great, constantly advancing security models, but the iPhone's extra layer of security will continue to give it the edge (in my opinion at least).

Unless you are opposed by an all-knowing god, security through obscurity can be a useful part of a defense-in-depth system.

The United States also transports nuclear weapons in ways that are not obviously a transportation of nuclear weapons, including in seemingly unarmed semi-trucks for thousands of miles.

Its a pretty effective way of moving things that need high secrecy and present logistical challenges in required protection. In the past highly valuable items have been moved using mundane methods with little fanfare.

Except if you have a spy in the group that transport the bombs, they just tip off some people with guns to grab it. And given the number of Islamist extremists in Pakistan and how much they would love to have a bomb, it seems rather likely that sooner or later they would get a spy installed.

Your argument makes sense, but if you have the resources to hijack a heavily armed convoy, you can probably more easily hijack a number of delivery fans separately.

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